Globalization

The literature on globalization began with economic discussions and that is where the evidence is the strongest. Large transnational corporations design, manufacture, and sell all over the world. Friedman’s two books (1999, 2005) and the article by McAnany make this case for the economic and communication systems respectively. Sassen provides a detailed and sophistocated history of the West from the late Medieval system to the nation-state to the current global system, focused on territory, authority, and rights. Each system combined facets of the previous system with new characteristics in new assemblages, e.g., the current international system retains strong nation states, not necessarily at odds with globalization. For statistical indecies of globalization, see the KOF Index of Globalization 2010.

KOF Index of Globalization (www.globalization.kof.ethz.ch) presents an overall globalization score (1970-2007 at present), plus scores for economic, social, and political globalization, which comprise the cumulative index. The economic score includes both actual economic flows and restrictions to such flows. That index is led by Singapore, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Malta. The social index, which has been fairly stagnant since 2001, includes information flows, personal contacts, and cultural proximity. It is led by Switzerland, Austria, and Canada. The political index includes foreign embassies, membership in international organizations, participation in U.N. peacekeeping missions, and adherence to international treaties. France leads this index. The United States, for example, raniks 27th overall, 57th in economic globalization, 25th in social globalization, and 14th in political globalization on 2007 data.

This debate pits one side, which describes a “win-win” situation for all, against the other, which focuses on the human damage which results from the injustice of current power imbalances. The annual Davos and anti-Davos conferences serve as good representations of these two worldviews. The books below strongly tie this argument about the nature of globalization to religious and ethical sources:

Chanda, Nayan. Bound Together: How Traders, Preachers, Adventurers, and Warriors Shaped Globalization (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007). Chanda, of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, illustrates how the above four groups shaped globalization. Chapter Four focuses on preachers, especially from Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism.

Coleman, John A., S.J., ed. Christian Political Ethics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008). This Ethikon volumn has sections on State and Civil Society, Boundaries and Justice, Pluralism, International Society, and War and Peace.

Hopkins, Dwight W., Lorentzen, Lois Ann, Mendieta, Eduardo, and Batstone, David, eds. Religions/Globalizations: Theories and Cases (Durham: Duke University Press, 2001). This book of theorical discussions (Hopkins, Dusses, Mendieta, Juergensmeyer, and Lorentzen) and six cases (2 African Christianity; Hinduism in Tamil Nadu; Cambodian-American Christians; Televangelism; and Emerging Spiritualities in the Network Society) focuses on the codependence and codetermination of religion and globalization. Hopkins starts his essay by discussing the world capitalist "Trinity" of the WTO, international banks (including the IMF and the World Bank), and monopoly capitalist corporations.

Sassen, Saskia. Losing Control? Sovereignty in an Age of Globalization (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996). Sassen's three lectures focus on The State and the New Geography of Power; Economic Citizenship; and how Immigration tests the new order.

Stackhouse, Max L., ed., God and Globalization. Three volumes edited by Max L. Stackhouse, Princeton Center of Theological Inquiry, and one collaborator each. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity International Press, 2000-2002. The theoretical framework can be found in Stackhouse’s introduction in the first volume, co-edited with Peter J. Paris, Religion and the Powers of the Common Life, pp. 1-52. The series joins ethics and theology in the new context of globalization. “The concerns of theological ethics are primary.”
The second volume, The Spirit and the Modern Authorities, co-edited with Don S. Browning, treats the educational, legal, and medical professions, technology, “nature,” and charismatic leadership. The third volume, Christ and the Dominions of Civilization, co-edited with Diane B. Obenchain, treats world religions. See especially the following essays:

Thomas, Scott, “The Global Resurgence of Religion and the Changing Character of International Politics,” in Max L. Stackhouse and Diane B. Obenchain, eds., God and Globalization: Christ and the Dominions of Civilization (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity International Press, 2002), 110-38.

Global Paradigms

See Hanson, Eric O., “A New Paradigm for World Politics?” in Religion and Politics in the International System Today(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 17-46.

See also Crossing the Divide: Dialogue among Civilizations (2001). This is the report of a UN committee chaired by Giandomenico Picco of Italy. The eminent personages assembled were A. Kamal Aboulmagd (Egypt), Lourdes Arizpe (Mexico), Hanan Ashrawi (Palestine) Ruth Cardoso (Brazil), Jacques Delors (France), Leslie Gelb (USA), Nadine Gordimer (South Africa), El Hassan bin Talal (Jordan), Sergey Kapitza (Russia), Hayao Kawai (Japan), Tommy Koh (Singapore), Hans Küng (Switzerland), Graça Machel (Mozambique), Amartya Sen (India), Song Jian (China), Dick Spring (Ireland), Tu Weiming (China), Richard von Weizsäcker (Germany), and Javad Zarif (Iran). Chapter Three is entitled “A New Paradigm of Global Relations” The old paradigm, according to these writers, was based on the “us and them” dynamic of exclusion. Diversity functions as a synonym of threat, and “might makes right.” This old paradigm has been questioned by the rise of international institutions, international law, and coalitions across borders. Global issues require global solutions. Another indication is the rise of “the hope for justice” as an indispensable component of solutions to disputes and conflicts. The processes of globalization are giving birth to a new paradigm of global relations based on dialogue. Its characteristics are: equal footing; reassessment of the “enemy”; dispersion of power; stakeholding; individual responsibility; and issue-driven alignments.
See pages 155 and 216 for the book’s charts.

Zakaria, Fareed. The Post-American World (New York: W.W.Norton, 2008). Zakaria describes "the rise of the rest," following periods of British and American hegemony. The United States will remain the sole superpower, but othe nations, especially China and India, will become more powerful vis-a-vis Washington. In this new international system, filled with many more types, e.g., NGOs, of actors, a negotiated globalization will lead to integration and nationalisms to disintegration. The rising powers are entering the Western global order on their own terms. Six rules for U.S. behavior in such a system.

Other Resource Materials:

Berger, Peter, ed. The Desecularization of the World: Resurgent Religion and World Politics. Grand Rapids, Mi.: William B. Eerdmans, 1999.

Farmer, Paul. Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2003. This doctor-public anthropologist writes of his experience with the lack of health care in developing countries, especially Haiti, Russia, and Chiapas (Chapter Three). For those interested in Catholicism, he discusses Liberation Theology in Chapter Five. Forward by Amartya Sen.

International Forum on Globalization. Alternatives to Economic Globalization: A Better World is Possible. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2002. John Cavanagh and Jerry Mander co-chaired this committee which including many prominent critics of globalization.

Jesuit Justice Conferences (2000 held at Santa Clara University; October 13-15, 2005 at John Carroll University) Website hosted by Loyola University of Baltimore. The keynote address of the 2000 conference was: Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, S.J., “The Service of Faith and the Promotion of Justice in American Jesuit Higher Education,” Santa Clara University Lecture Series, October 6, 2000.

Krishnaswamy, Revathi, and Hawley, John C. The Postcolonial and the Global. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2007.

www.globalengage.org The Institute for Global Engagement promotes “sustaninable environments for religious freedom worldwide. It houses the Council on Faith and International Affairs which publishes The Review of Faith and International Affairs.

www.govindicators.org. “Governance Matters, 2007: Worldwide Governance Indicators 1996-2006.” This World Bank report, based on data from a diverse set of organizations, from Freedom House to Reporters Without Borders, undermines “Afro-pessimism.” Worldwide, national gains and losses led to little global improvement overall. The report is released annually.